Most Adults on Social Media Engaged With Health Content

The bulk of adults who use social media reported engaging with health information via these platforms, despite not always finding it trustworthy, according to survey data.

Out of over 7,000 adults, 87.8% reported using social media, and among those, engagement with health-related content was common, with 84.8% sharing personal or general health information, and 70.2% participating in online communities, reported Rohan Khera, MD, MS, of Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues.

Notably, 21.6% reported making health-related decisions based on social media content, though 77.7% said they believed the health information encountered on social media was false or misleading, the researchers reported in a research letter in JAMA.

“The most striking finding was the disconnect between distrust and behavior,” Khera told MedPage Today in an email. This finding “suggests that people may recognize the information environment as unreliable, but exposure to social media health content may still influence their decisions.”

“The broader implication is that medical and public health communities need to be present where patients are already looking for information,” Khera said. “Social media is not just a source of misinformation. It is also a potential channel for timely, accessible, and trusted health communication. The challenge is to improve the quality and reliability of the health information environment rather than assuming patients will avoid it.”

The researchers noted that social media has changed how people look for health information. “Unlike traditional sources, social media operates through algorithmically curated, engagement-driven environments increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence-generated content often lacking editorial oversight,” they wrote.

“Prior surveys and national polling suggest that many adults report seeking health-related information through social media and other digital sources,” they added. “However, most of these studies predate the current social media landscape and primarily examined overall use, sociodemographic patterns, or perceptions of misinformation rather than the specific ways individuals engage with health information on these platforms.”

Khera and colleagues explored how adults with and without chronic conditions differed in their engagement. Among 4,590 adults with chronic conditions (69.1% of respondents), social media use was reported by 85.5%. However, these individuals were less likely than those without chronic conditions to share health information via social media (OR 0.60, 95% CI 0.46-0.79) or participate in online communities (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.55-0.83).

Overall, social media use was lower among older adults (OR 0.16, 95% CI 0.12-0.21) and residents of rural areas (OR 0.47, 95% CI 0.25-0.89) as well as among those with lower educational attainment, in survey-weighted regression analyses.

Meanwhile, older and Hispanic social media users were significantly more likely to make health decisions based on information from social media (ages ≥65 vs <65 years: OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.05-1.74; Hispanic vs white: OR 1.70, 95% CI 1.20-2.41).

“Notably, higher educational attainment and higher household income were independently associated with distrust in social media health information, while Black and Hispanic individuals were less likely than white individuals to report distrust,” Khera and colleagues added.

Researchers used data from the 2024 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, to complete their study. The survey included 7,278 respondents, representing 262 million adults. Social media use was defined as use of a social networking site in the previous 12 months.

Limitations included that findings were based on self-reported survey data and that the content, accuracy, or sources of information were not captured, Khera and colleagues noted. They added that a “rapidly evolving social media environment underscores the need for ongoing, repeated measurement to capture changes in patterns of use and engagement over time.”